Thread: Easiest Chair for a Beginner?

Hi VG,

A chair is a daunting project for your first build. Perhaps a stool or a coffee table first. There's a lot of work and a lot of timber and a lot of M&T joints in a chair.
But if you want to do a chair first, then do a search for chair patterns on the web and pick one that is fairly straight forward. (mainly straight lines). A good set of chisels will help you as well.

Regards,

Rob

you might be right rob.....I was sort of thinking a rocking chair which is probably harder again. A stool might be nice if I could get some pencil retro looking legs.

George Nakashima Conoid chairs, set of four : Lot 180

George Nakashima's Conoid chair is a good one to start with. It's very beautiful and relatively easy to make for a chair. I'm sure you will be able to find many build blogs on this.

I like the conoid chair too, but whatever you make, be sure to use M&T joints or floating tenons, rather than dowels. There is a lot of stress on chairs at the back leg/side rail junctions, so they need to be strong.

Neil Scobie has several chair plans available via Skills Publishing (Australian Woodworker Mag.) and he also runs classes from his Coffs Harbour workshop, a great place to visit for a learning holiday.....I did a 5 day workshop with him in 2006 and can thoroughly recommend his workshops and teaching method.
Neil and Liz's web site is worth checking out as are his plans.......cheers kerry